Ugo Monye lost £10,000 and his place in the England Elite Player Squad last
week but bounced back with a brilliant second-half try in Harlequins' 47-8
Heineken Cup win against Connacht at the Stoop on Saturday that should
interest the Lions selectors as well Stuart Lancaster.

The running man: Ugo Monye on the charge for Harlequins against Connacht Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Monye ripped through two Connacht defenders and then blazed his way past fullback Robbie Henshaw to notch one of the best tries of his career to mark his 200th Quins appearance in style and finish a downbeat week on a high.

On Wednesday morning Lancaster dropped Monye from his senior England squad and that evening Lloyds TSB informed the Harlequins wing that somebody had hacked into his account and gone on a spending spree at Burberry, Apple, Domino’s and Fragrencemad.com.

The money will be returned by the end of the month, but what chance of an England recall?

“I was disappointed to be dropped to the Saxons to be perfectly honest,” Monye said. “A lot of people congratulated me but I’ve still got ambition and I took it as a setback.

"But it’s more important how you bounce back and it was nice to put another marker down and just press on.”

Monye started, and scored a try, in England’s 54-12 win over Fiji at the start of the autumn series but did not figure thereafter as Lancaster turned to Charlie Sharples, Chris Ashton on his return from a one-match suspension and Monye’s versatile club colleague, Mike Brown.

“It’s funny one,” Monye said. “Whenever you are dropped from a team you probably want to hear that you haven’t been performing or training well or maybe it’s your attitude, but I all the feedback I got when I was dropped was actually positive.

“I was considered a good positive influence in the squad, but it was just a case of wanting to give Charlie a shout and then Mike coming in and doing really well.

"It was just one of those things but it was frustrating because I feel that if I had been given a couple of games I could have shown my worth. My pace is still there, I showed that today and over the last few weeks.

“There is no better place to come back to than Quins. We are such a vibrant team and play such good rugby that you get opportunities to play with the ball in hand. I’m in a good place.”

As for the missing money, apparently it had been going on for a couple of weeks before the bank alerted Monye.

Curiously, he uses most of the outlets regularly, but not Domino’s pizzas: “I’m a professional athlete so that’s was the giveaway it wasn’t me,” he said.

On the subject of money, Conor O’Shea, the Harlequins director of rugby, is determined that Quins should resist the temptation of moving their home quarter-final across the road to Twickenham where they could probably guarantee a sell-out 82,000 crowd in April, especially if Munster of Leinster were to emerge as their opponents.

The competition organisers, keen that clubs should seek bigger quarter-final venues, now allow home teams to to bank 65 per cent of the match revenue, and with ticket sales for a Twickenham sell-out heading towards £3million for a club match, that slice of the cake would be considerable.

Compared with a 15,000 sell-out at the Stoop, it would be a financial bonanza, but O’Shea will not be swayed.

He said: “You could go across the way but this is our home and I for one desperately want to play here, and I’m sure the boys will.

"More people might be able to watch at Twickenham but hopefully we can do that at another stage of the competition.”